Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

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About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

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It is fitting that President-elect Barack Obama’s victory speech tonight took place in Chicago’s Grant Park, named in honor of Civil War general and former President Ulysses S. Grant who led the Union Forces to victory in a war fought, in part, to free the slaves.



When I realized tonight that Barack Obama would be the next president of my country, my mind and heart turned to those who gave their all and in too many cases their lives so this day would come. I think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, Medger Evers, Rosa Parks and Coretta King along with so many others, of all cultures and colors who fought so hard and for so long so that we, as a people, would learn to measure each other, as King said, “by the content of our character and not the color of our skin.”


If you are an American, then I gently encourage you to reflect on something for a moment. Whatever your political views, whether your heart is soaring, broken or ambivalent by the results of tonight’s election, allow yourself a nice dose of pride in your country. The finalists in the race for the presidency were a courageous man who is a senior citizen, a woman, a hard nose scrappy fellow from a blue-collar Pennsylvania enclave, and a man whose mother was from Kansas and father was from Kenya. If you are not American, please reflect too that today’s election in my country, a country I truly do love, shows that the real spirit of America is alive an well.


I believe the dynamics and realities of today’s election may be the first step in healing our country and in healing our country’s relationship with the rest of the world. We have passed through eight years with a president and vice-president who deserve neither title and should , in my view, be tried as war criminals. They have trashed the constitution, turned the justice department into a complete and utter farce, and have done so without a sliver of conscience between them.


Yet, despite all they’ve done, the extraordinary truth that is the American people has spoken. Perhaps now we can get back to being the country our founding father’s and the constitution intended.


God bless America.

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STRIKE ONE, YOU’RE OUT

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At age 55 I have led a life with its fair share of hard knocks. It would be reasonable for you to think that the cumulative impact of those knocks would have knocked all the naivete or foolishness out of my system. However, you’d be wrong.

The old adage of you find out who your friends are when the going gets tough still holds true. Yet, even now, when I am in a very real way at risk of losing my home and more because of an unexpected stop in income coupled with an in-process application for disability, some I expected to at least hear from have been stone cold silent, and one or two make it clear when we have communicated that doing so is a real burden for them. I could easily aim blood-letting razor-blade sentences at a few, but why waste the ink?

Others have been remarkable in their kindness and support. Some have sent some money to help me with food and household supplies. A friend I used to work with who has a newborn baby and is moving to a new home still reaches out to me to make sure I am okay. My brother-in-my heart, Michael, the closest person to me in the world is always there for me. He and his sons and his wife, Frieda, are people that really are family for me.

Do not think I am whining. Not in the least. I guess part of what I am saying, or suggesting, is don’t go around telling someone you are their friend or that you love them and care about them if you have the kind of spineless selfish self-absorption that leads you to vanish when they are in danger of losing their home, or in real dire straits of any kind.

There is a reason they say home is where the heart is. I am done with people who say they are my friend or say they love me looking to wound my heart. Strike one, you’re out.
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REMEMBERING GERALD ARPINO

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I loved Gerald Arpino very much. A choreographer and one of the founders of the Joffrey Ballet, Mr. Arpino died this week at his home in Chicago. He was 85. I learned a great deal from him. He was a man of kind and gentle heart. His intelligence was formidable and his choreography was both courageous and extraordinary.


In 1967 at age 13, I danced a principal role in “Elegy,” one of his ballets. Set to Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik’s extraordinary 22-minute anti-war symphony, Sinfonia Elegiaca, “Elegy” was the story of a Confederate soldier from the American Civil War, danced by Maximiliano Zamosa. Just when he is blindfolded and tied to a tree to be executed by a firing squad of Union soldiers, he has a flashback to the halcyon days with his wife and children.



I danced the role of his son and Charthelle Arthur and Susan Magno took turns dancing the role of his daughter. Noel Mason, as beautiful and elegant a ballerina as I have ever seen, danced the role of his wife. It is at the end of a dance between father and son that the flashback ends, the father is pulled back into the horror of his reality and executed.


The rehearsals were extraordinary experiences. Hard working and sweat filled with Mr. Arpino focused and intense, pushing us to breathe life into our characters, and never failing to seek the input of the dancers, including mine!


After the execution, there was a funeral scene. I had a small wooden sword tucked in my belt. At one point I break free of my mother’s hand and dance a solo wielding the sword because, as Mr. Arpino said, “You are following in your father’s footsteps and at the same time you are trying to kill those who killed him.”



Mr. Arpino turned me loose in my solo. He never told me what steps to do and instead sat back and freed me, allowing me to pour my all into it. The solo ended when my mother took the sword from me, determined that her son would not die the way her husband.


But Mr. Arpino taught me more about life than just ballet. He and others in the Joffrey helped me discover that those who are gay are no different than anyone else. I had fallen in love with the ballet when I was five and began training in earnest when I was eight. I was an ignorant little homophobe whose idea of homosexuality had about as much to do with reality as the Wizard of Oz. And, while my dancing career was cut short by a series of unforeseen circumstances, I left that career no longer burdened by the poison of homophobia. Mr. Arpino and others taught me that you you don’t have to be heterosexual to be a real man.


When Mr. Arpino died this week, the world lost a wonderful human being and a real man. Like I said, I loved him very much. Still do.

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WRITING MY WHOLE WIDE WORLD

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“You can go ahead and write now,” he said, smiling at me. “Now’s the time.”

“But I feel like when I do I’m non-existent, as if nothing matters, like it’s all a waste.”

“You’re wrong, Pete. Think about what you teach others, that our feelings may not be exactly what is, other than they are our true feelings.”

The younger man stood and walked over to a window that looked out over an expanse of rolling verdant hills that seemed to stretch on forever. “It feels like I’m leaving you behind.”

“If you write?”

“If I go ahead and write, maybe do an open mic night, but especially if I write.”

“I’m the one who left you, Peter.”

“You died. You never left me.”

“Well then? What makes you think you’ll be leaving me if you go ahead and write to your heart’s content? You’re almost done with the memoir; you’ve got two novels started and the third book about working with brain injury.”

The younger man turns away from the window and looks at the soft-warm image of the older man, his father. “I don’t know, Daddy. That’s one I can’t figure out.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m here… Remember the time you ran away to Tarrytown when we lived in Nyack. You and Bobby wanted to see those girls, Jody and Noel?”

The younger man laughs. “You remember their names.”

“We have the all of our memories here. Do you remember?”

“Yes, Dad. I remember.”

“You and Bobby took the battery from Poppop’s Mercedes so you could start Pascal’s boat.”

“God. That was a shitty thing to do.”

“True. Funny as hell though. Even Poppop thought so.”

“Really?”

“Sure. He got up that morning; his car wouldn’t start, so he called the Mercedes dealer in Englewood. The dealer sends a mechanic to the house. Imagine their surprise when before Poppop could even turn the key, the mechanic had the hood up saying, “I think I know the problem, Mr. Beach.””

“You and Poppop caught us.”

“Well for God sakes, Peter, it’s kind of hard not noticing you and Bobby lugging the battery across the lawn moaning and groaning about how heavy it was.”

Father and son laugh, hug, and sit down on the couch.

“Do you remember what we talked about when you came back that time?”

“We were sitting on the couch like now. That I needed to be careful not to base all my decisions just on my emotions.”

“And what stops you from writing?”

“I’m afraid I’m leaving you behind, leaving you alone.”

“That’s emotion, don’t let that by itself be what stops you. And you’re not leaving me alone at all if you write, Peter. I am never without you. I think you fear something else even more though.”

The younger man places the palms of his hands on the back of his knees, leans forward and for a moment presses down hard on both. He then leans back into the couch and lets out a sigh, as if something in him has surrendered, or opened.

“I think you are afraid you will lose me. That if you go ahead and write, when you’re done, you’ll look up and I’ll be gone.” He reaches out and takes his son’s hand. “Peter, I would no more leave you than you would leave me. How many speeches have you given where you said you’d give up the rest of your life in a heartbeat just to hug meone more time?”

“I don’t know.”

“A lot. Don’t you think I hear you? Of course I do. I am so proud of you. I love you and I’m proud of you no matter what you do. I am especially happy for you and for myself frankly when I see you do things I know you want to do.”

“Like write.”

“Like write.”

“I love you my whole wide world, Daddy.”

“I love you my whole wide world too, Peter.”
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RICHARD BAILEY & OUR ADDICTION TO VIOLENCE

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All murders are wrenching. All murders rip into the heart and soul of a community without mercy. Rarely do they seem to make sense. The murder of 22-year-old Richard Bailey in Albany New York this week is no exception. A student at the University of Albany and from all accounts a good and decent young man, Mr. Bailey, a Wantaugh New York native, was shot in the head and killed while walking home to his on-campus apartment October 20.


I don’t know what Mr. Bailey’s last moments were like. My guess, from the sound of things, is he was unconscious for whatever moments in life remained for him after the trigger was pulled. I know when I was shot in the head at point blank range on August 24, 1984, I regained consciousness and the blistering my moments on the ground bleeding to death are beyond the reach of words, my words anyway.


Here is what I do know. We live in a society that is addicted to violence. We live in a society that at every turn teaches us that a true measure of your strength is measured by the size of our capacity to be violent. Look around you: video games, movies, television. It is everywhere. To get free of any addiction, we as a society must go through a withdrawal of sorts. Better that form of withdrawal than to experience one life after another being withdrawn from our midst.


We had better return en masse to the methods of non-violence. I am convinced beyond measure that it is the only way. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a hero of mine for as long as I’ve had memory, once compared non-violence to water. He said, “Non-violence is like water. If you have a fire and you throw a bucket of water on it and it doesn’t go out, it doesn’t mean water doesn’t put out fire. It means you need more water.”


Wherever you live, consider doing something non-violent to contribute to peace in your community, and, perhaps more importantly, in your family. I’ve sent a note to an Albany clerk expressing my interest in helping the Albany Gun Violence Task Force. There’s even talk about creating a position for an anti-violence coordinator. Were the position to be approved by the council, I might apply for it. I would urge the Task Force to consider changing it’s name to the Albany Anti-Violence task force. Let the name of this extraordinary group of people cover all forms of violence. Whether the position is approved or not, I will help the task force in any way I can.

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